I'm still here.....

I've been absent....well, not absent so much as just not posting. Lots going on. First part of the month means budget, bills, and work. I've started clipping coupons. Yeah, I know. About time! Been married for nearly 17 years! Well, right now it's kind of a game. How much can I get deducted from my grocery bill at the register. Cashiers are going to learn to hate me QUICK! LOL! I'm just cheesy enough to let them ring all the crap up, then hand them the coupons, then hand them my store card! I saved $55.00 yesterday. Pretty cool! Well, I need to get back to work. Fear not! I am alive!

There's a town in Georgia.....

“They say 'Home' is a place you go where they always take you in.”

That’s a line from the song “Augusta” by Pinmonkey. Ironic, no? Well, OK, so I’m not from Augusta, I’m from Aiken…but Augusta is not but a few miles away. This song isn’t a hit. I don’t even know how mainstream it is. I’d be willing to bet it’s never been played on an Augusta radio station. It is a slow, country music type song which is certainly not my normal type of music. There’s not a bongo drum or a screaming guitar to be found in the whole thing! But how can you resisit a line like, "Savannah River from the overpass shining bright in the morning light like a fire in a whiskey glass?" I found it on iTunes after downloading the song “Graniteville.” I don’t think I’d even googled the band until just this second. They aren’t even FROM Augusta! Looks like they’re from Tennessee. Well, they sure knew enough about the town to name a place or two I recognized…like Sand Bar Ferry Road. Why anyone in their right mind would be standing on the side of it without a broken down vehicle in front of them I assuredly do not know. Sand Bar Ferry Road is a stretch of road that goes from the Broad Street terminus all the way to Beech Island where it ends. It’s not a beautiful piece of ground. Once Broad Street stops and Sand Bar Ferry begins, there are some scattered businesses in a lower income neighborhood. There is a junk yard over there I’ve been in….more than once. Mike loves the place! Anywho, the road becomes sort of uninhabited except in spots. There is one or two scattered homes, a factory, and an abandoned building or two until you hit Beech Island. Then it’s a low income neighborhood with gas stations, used car lots, etc. Not a lovely place. It does cross the Savannah River. I’m sure they looked at a map and said, “Sand Bar Ferry Road! Yeah that’s it!” But why? Why write about a place you aren’t from? The guy who wrote “Graniteville” isn’t from there either. He’s from Texas. He heard about the train wreck (I’m not talking about Graniteville itself, Debrine!) and decided that that sounded like a song that needed to be written. He fictionalized a lot of the facts about the accident but it still strikes a chord because it’s here. It’s Aiken. I have family and friends there. I have history there. The accident happened almost right in front of the mill. My grandmother worked that mill for years as a weaver. She retired on October 7, 1973. How do I know that? She retired a month to the day after my birth. Back to the music. In the song “Graniteville” Doug Burr writes from the prospective of a husband trying to get his wife to wake up after a chemical spill. Although the spill did take place about 2:40 AM, the song was fiction. 9 people died total, all were men. 5,400 residents within a mile of the crash had to evacuate for two weeks. My first reaction when watching the nightly news from my home in Virginia was, “THAT’S GRANITEVILLE!” The TV was muted and it was an aerial shot and I STILL recognized it. Thankfully, my Aunt Sara and Uncle Tommy were fine. They evacuated with everyone else. Grannie Rhinehart was fine also. She stayed with Debrine.

In the song, Mr. Burr uses the line, “We were always watching, watching the train go by.” Honestly, that is all there is to do in Graniteville. He also calls it “a quiet little city.” Hardly. Quiet, is right but Graniteville isn’t a city really. Not in the normal sense. It’s more of a village but we don’t really use the term "village" here in Aiken County. The term “City” makes it sound like it has a grocery store and a police department. Er, no. "The whole town dies while it's still sleeping." As much as I hate to admit it, this was a bit prophetic on Mr. Burr's part. After the crash and chlorine spill, the town did die.....not literally but for all intents and purposes. Know what chlorine does to stuff? It destroys it. It literally ate the mills from the inside out. Machinery was destroyed. Pipes too. Wiring, everything. Gone. The mills were struggling as it was but staying afloat. The accident killed them. The company who owned the mills could not afford to repair the damage the chlorine gas had done. Jobs were lost. The doors simply closed. They had the mills up for sale and a company bought one or two but it wasn't enough to save everyone's jobs. "It's a black train rolling through the middle of the night. Finds us sleeping. There's no where to hide."

I'm still here. I got busy and was waiting on inspiration to hit and was off killing spammers on another board, and blah blah blah. Back soon I swear. I can still see the bottles off-shore.

I’ve started playing Sudoku. Yeah I’m a big old weenie and am still doing (and having issues with) the easy puzzles. I got sick of Mahjong and Solitaire got old many years ago. I need a puzzle to keep my brain active. I can get through about half of a Sudoku puzzle before I start scribbling out numbers. Vince is a little amazed that I am messing with this. Truth is, I’m kinda concerned that as I get older, I will lose some of my mental dexterity. Contrary to popular belief, I’m pretty darned smart. I think the puzzles will help keep my brain from melting into ooze and sliding out of my ears! HAHA! I need to keep myself sharp to keep up with Vince and Jeff!

*Hack* *Cough*

Freaking cough. I’ve had this freaking cough for months now. It isn’t a constant thing. For quite a while I wouldn’t cough until I went to bed, then I’d cough my head off. Not that that would wake me up, me being the Olympic sleeper that I am. It did bug Vince who would wake me up and tell me to TAKE SOMETHING. Now it seems to hit me in the mornings after I’ve gotten to work. It’s not a chest cough where I’m coughing something up. It’s just an annoying thing that hits me about 8:45 and lasts for a short time. Vince keeps telling me to go to the doctor. I suppose I’ll drag myself over there soon. What the hell do you tell the doctor? “Hey Doc. I’ve got this cough that hits about 8:45 in the morning. I sound like I’m going to hack up a lung and lasts about an hour then I’m fine the rest of the day?” I somehow don’t think that’s gonna work. Oh well. I’ll figure it out. Maybe a big fat bag of peppermints will do the trick. I hate going to the doctor. Can you tell?

Island, I see you in the moonlight...

“My garden is filled with papayas and mangos. My life is a mixture of reggaes and tangos. Taste for the good life. I can't live it no other way. While out on the beach there are two empty chairs That say more than the people who ever sit there. From under my lone palm I can look out on the day.” – Jimmy Buffett

A great person (Acidman…RIP dude) once described blogging as “an exercise where I stuffed notes in bottles and threw them into a vast ocean where I hoped someone would find the bottle and read the note. But that's not really what I was doing. This blog was my lifeline that towed me to shore when I was totally shipwrecked. It kept me alive for more than two of the worst years I've lived in my life. I wasn't stuffing notes in bottles. I was standing on the shore and shouting frantically for rescue. People came. I WAS rescued. And I will always appreciate that fact.” I agree. Although I am not shipwrecked, I do see this blog as my way to stuff a note in a bottle. I am on this island of my own accord. Self-imposed exile, let’s call it. So far, I can see the bottles not far off shore. But I’m in no hurry. I’ll just sit here under my lone palm and wait for the tide to go out…

Let's go over this one more time....

"Ya bitch about the present and blame it on the past. I'd like to find your inner child an' kick it's little ass. Get over it. " - The Eagles

Why do people insist on pissing me off? Why? I just don’t get it. I have a strained relationship with this particular someone as it is. Why mess with me? Dude. Just leave me alone to live my life. You live yours. I’m saddled with a house that won’t sell because of your stupid shit. I’m out thousands and thousands of dollars from trying to help you and you kept screwing me over. And do I need to bring up how many cars you’ve screwed me over on? Really? Just quit poking the medicated person mmkay? I don’t care where you live, who you date, or any of that. That’s your business. Just don’t involve me. I don’t care if you bought a car. Really I don’t. I’ve bought dozens of them. I DO care that the finance company is calling me. THAT is a problem. If I find out my name and/or credit has been used, we will then have an issue. OK, back to your regularly scheduled program.

There should be at least 4 days to a weekend....

"It's been a hard days night and I've been working like a dog." - The Beatles

I need more days in a weekend. Two days is entirely too few for all the stuff I need to do when I don’t have to be at work. Ideally, one of those days would always be a lovely 78 degrees and sunny. I have this to do list that never seems to run out and once I get on a roll I need to be able to stay on it. For instance, I need to clean out my dining room….again. About two years ago, I cleaned it out and got it into a useable shape. I think we used it once. In the intervening time, it has become a dumping ground for stuff….unsold model horses, left-overs from my antique booth, old school stuff, furniture that needs to be moved out to the barn, you get the picture. Vince really wants me to get this done so that we can have company over. I really want to get it done so I don’t have to walk past the destruction every day. I’ve still got two cars that need to get up to the Ford Dealership to get the recalls taken care of. One of those is the Ranger my mom and aunt use on occasion to haul trash. I am thinking I will try to drive into Aiken to pick it up tomorrow, drive all the way back across town to handle the recall, then drive it all the way back out there to the country. What a way to spend an afternoon off! I need minions to do my bidding. They can handle all the grunt work while I hang out here at work. Yes, I definately think minions are the way to go...

Lights, camera, ACTION!

I've been a player in the crowd scene

A flicker on the big screen

My soul embraces one more in a million faces. - Chesney Hawkes

Vince and Jeff are starting a production company. Yes, I’m a little nervous. OK, so right now they are mostly harmless. They have a decent little camera, a boom mic, and are looking at a lapel mic. I think they have a script. My involvement so far is as director/key grip/best boy. I run the camera and offer advice where I can. I’m told they have other plans for me. I’m not sure why that makes me want to run hide in the closet. I modeled for a few years (and that was a few years too many) so you would think that I would not be camera shy. Ah, contraire, Mon Amie. I avoid cameras like the plague. Usually, if there is a camera within 10 feet of me, I’m behind it. I don’t find myself at all photogenic and I tend to clam up at the sight of a video camera.

Anywho, I spent this weekend listening to “quiet on the set………and……ACTION!” Jeff, of course, is a natural. Vince is warming up to the task. Vince is, by nature, a teacher. He enjoys that kind of thing….but it doesn’t translate well for the audience Vince and Jeff are after. Vince needs to loosen up and talk as if he were talking to Mike, Jeff, Jack, or any of his buddies. He’s getting there. I have to get him out of “shop teacher” mode. It appears that I am at least done for a bit. They have to film some stuff down at Shepley’s and something about a junk yard and bees. I don’t know. I’m still not sure what their final vision for the whole thing is. I just do what I’m told. Hey! I saw that eye roll.

Let's assume I know everything and get this over with.

"I had seen my becoming a vampire in two lights: The first light was simply enchantment... But the other light was my wish for self-destruction."

-Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

So I’m already out of ideas of what to write. This is a stream of consciousness thing and apparently I’m unconscious. Must be a side effect of my being dead. OK, I’m not really dead….I mean, I’m typing, right? It’s an ongoing joke between me and my husband and various members of my family. My feet…and body in general…do not generate heat. My body can actually be colder than room temperature at times. I also discovered when we lived in Virginia that I have something called Raynaud's phenomenon which is pretty funny and frightening at the same time. Symptoms usually include:
· Tingling and slight loss of feeling or numbness in the fingers.
· Blanching or whitening of the fingers, usually without affecting the thumb.
· Blue skin that feels cold and numb.
· Numb, prickly feeling or stinging pain, sometimes with redness, upon warming or relief of stress.
· Sequence of color changes in the skin may progress from white to blue to red.
Basically, my fingers go white, then blue, and then they feel like they are connected to a cadavers hand. It’s pretty cool for scaring the heck out of kids and grossing out friends. Yeah, I’m a hoot at parties! So, would this "undead" state account for my obsession with vampires? Hmm? I mean, all vampires, not just Edward Cullen. He’s just the latest vampire on the list. I think I dragged Shelly to every vampire movie that was made whether she wanted to go or not. I know we saw Dracula and Interview with a Vampire in Augusta when we were teenagers. Lestat was THE MAN….er, VAMPIRE….and he’d have beaten Edward Cullen to a pulp and drained twitchy, mouth-breather Bella Swan without even breaking a sweat. I think it’s the idea of being young and beautiful forever that makes them so fascinating. The whole drinking blood thing just sort of seems like an unfortunate side effect to me. *Sadistic grin* I got to thinking about it and the story of Twilight seemed vaguely familiar to me in some ways. After pondering for all of about half an hour I remembered a movie I had loved called “Tuck Everlasting”. Imagine Twilight sans blood lust and werewolves…and mouth breather idiot girl. The premise of the story is a young girl named Winnie meets and falls in love with a 17 year old boy named Jesse Tuck. Turns out Jesse’s entire family is immortal. All they had to do was drink the water in the woods behind Winnie’s house. Seriously. Winnie decided she didn’t want to be immortal and she went on to live a normal life and die. She’s dead when Jesse returns for her. Now for the similarities in situations.

From Tuck Everlasting:
“How old are you?” - Winnie
“You really wanna know?” - Jesse
“Yes.” - Winnie
“104” - Jesse
“I'm serious.” – Winnie
“So am I!” - Jesse [Thinks about it]
“Let's just call it 17.”

From Twilight:
“How old are you?” – Bella
“Seventeen.” - Edward
“How long have you been seventeen?” - Bella
“A while.” – Edward

Edward finally owns up to being born in 1901 which would make him 107. I’m not sayin’…..I’m just sayin’! If I was going to be one age for forever I think I would have picked 19. I was still kinda awkward and weird at 17. By 19, I had accepted that I was never going to be 5’9” and a bombshell. Anyway, I was thinking that it was too bad Jesse and Bella never hooked up. Bella could have drank from the stream and been immortal with Jesse. Edward and Winnie could have both had what they wanted. Edward would have stayed with her forever and Winnie could have remained human. Yeah, this is why I am not an author. My books would be so boring…and relatively short!

When I was a teenager, I was a rabid Lost Boys fan. David, Paul, Dewayne, and Marko were IT. They were the Dracula-type vampires I was used to. There wasn't anyone in that movie I didn't love. I even liked Micheal even though he didn't want to be a vampire. Weirdo. Don't even get me started on Angel or we'll be here all day.

I think out of all the vampires in literature and film, I most identify with Edward Cullen. He hates what he is and has hated it for a very long time. He thinks he doesn't deserve any happiness and he spends a majority of his time wrapped up in books and music. He avoids any real friendships outside of his family which is more out of necessity than just being anti-social. Short of the actual vampire thing, that was me to a T when I was 17. Maybe that emo feeling is tied to being that age. I grew out of most of it within a year or two, but Edward is stuck in that place in his development. He is completely unchanging. OK, so there is one more drawback to the whole vampire schtick.

Ah well. I guess I'd better shut up and go turn the heat up before someone complains about my being among the dearly departed....again.

And I got out of bed this morning why?

"Sleep and dreams, that's all I crave...." Van Halen



Ever had one of those days where the alarm clock goes off and you think, "Oh hell no. I'm not getting up." Yeah, well, that's me at least 3 days a week. I am by nature a lazy person. I enjoy sleeping. I go on vacation so I can sleep in a poolside chair or on a beach. I'm pretty convinced that if reincarnation and past-lives are fact, I was a ferret my last life. Anywho, this was one of those mornings for me. The alarm clock went off and I winced, mumbled something profane in the direction of said clock, and decided that since I am currently employed and I do love my job, I'd better get my lazy arse outta bed and into the shower. It's moments like this when I begrudge the fact that I wasn't born into a filthy rich "Old Aiken Money" family. My family is "Old Aiken" but somehow we managed to avoid that whole "money" part. I guess that when social classes were more defined, my farmer/working class ancestors just decided that it wasn't worth the trouble to attempt a "class jump". Maybe my laziness really comes from my mothers branch of the family tree! Actually, for a bunch of people who got high school educations and worked for every single thing they ever got, I have to give them credit. They were good Christian people who were more than willing to share what they had. I remember my grandmother making quilts and pretty much giving them away. She raised chickens and always gave away or sold the eggs dirt cheap. I wonder if she even made enough off the eggs to feed the chickens. Church on Sunday was a must and then there was a good home cooked meal with plenty to eat for the entire family and then some. I wonder if my Great Grandmother and Great Great Grandmother were the same way. Was Grannie Snipes simply following an example that had been set for her by her Grandmother? I have access to the Aiken Standard archives back to 1871 or so and it's pretty interesting to do searches on family members and see what they were doing. It used to be common practice to report the goings-on in your family and have them printed for other people in the town to read. For example, in the Bridge Creek Social News section of the Wednesday May 16, 1951 Aiken Standard it is reported, "Mrs. Allen Rodgers and Mrs. Thelma Snipes and children visited Mrs. C. H. Cool and Delores Monday afternoon." Mrs. Allen Rodgers is my great grandmother and Mrs. Thelma Snipes is my grandmother. The "children" are, of course, my Aunt Mildred, my Aunt Maryann, and my (at the time) 8 year old mother. I have no clue where in Aiken County the Bridge Creek area was nor who Mrs. C. H. Cool or Delores were but I'm sure my mom and Aunts could tell me! This little bit of news served no real purpose as I'm sure the visit consisted of my Grannie and Great Grannie sitting around having coffee with Mrs. Cool while all the children played. No great plans were made, no world problems were solved. It was just printed in the paper in a time when not every home had a phone. Now it serves as a way for me to get a small glimpse into the life of a person I never got the privilege to meet (my Great Grannie) in a time long gone in a small close-knit Southern town that does not exist anymore. Aiken exists, sure....but not this Aiken. This place were unofficial "districts" existed like Bridge Creek, Beaver Dam, Kitchings Mill, Shaws Fork, and a hundred others. The Aiken I know is defined now by Equestrian Communities like Three Runs Plantation, Hollow Creek Preserve, and Bridle Creek and Gated Communities like Woodside Plantation. Old Aiken is where true Aikenites resided all year long and the only time "out-of-towners" were in residence was during the mild winters. Now, if you run into more than 2 people per day who were actually born in Aiken, you've accomplished something. Most residents now are Northerners lulled here by mild winters and less expensive housing or horse people who come here for all Aiken has to offer the "horsey set." I guess I was born in the wrong era. I would have loved to have been able to see a time when horses and wagons were the main transportation in town and life was more laid back and people took the time to stop and smell the roses. It appeals to the lazy side of my personality. To quote Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Yeah, I feel like I'm missing it.

From under my lone palm......

"Be good and you will be lonesome
Be lonesome and you will be free
Live a lie and you will live to regret it
That's what living is to me"

Words to live by from my favorite singer/philosopher/pirate Jimmy Buffett.

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Gina and I live in the big town of Jackson, SC. If you've never heard of the place, it's just on the SC side of the Savannah River from Augusta, GA. I live about 10 miles down the road from James Brown's house. That is about my only claim to fame. Oh, that and I'm 6'5" tall. Yeah, I'm a freak. I'm cool with it though. I was born in 1973 in Aiken, SC where generations upon generations of my mother's family have been born, married, died, and buried. I could throw a rock in the air and it would hit someone I'm related to. We shifted around a little bit when I was a little shaver....Rhode Island, North Carolina, back to South Carolina. My father was a Research Chemist for United Merchants and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I have one sibling....a brother named Allen. More about him later. I'm married to the "man of my dreams" Vince, and we own a small farm....if you can call two spoiled horses, two rotten dogs, and 300 or so cats a farm. I decided to start a blog more as a form of therapy than anything. Hey it's cheaper than a psychiatrist! You will soon figure out that mental illness doesn't really run in my family....it's more like a slow jog.